Gay North Carolina man testifies that evangelical church members beat him up to ‘purify’ him

Purifying a man through beating is something not to be tolerated. A North Carolina man thought himself dead when members of the evangelical church started beating the demons out of his body. They choked him for about 2 hours in an attempt to purify his body.

Mathew Fenner, a 23-year-old victim, was the first person to stand against the atrocities of Brooke Covington, a 58-year-old minister at Word of Faith Fellowship in Spindale, N.C. He took part in the assault and kidnapping trial against Covington. Fenner stated that Covington had a major role in the 2013 beating involving other part-takers from the church. Covington pointed out Fenner’s sexual orientation and stated,

God said there is something wrong in your life.

Fenner further added that during his childhood he had suffered from cancer and only a few weeks before the beating, he actually had gone through biopsy. Fenner described the experience saying,

Fenner said, that around two dozen of men surrounded him while he was leaving for the night prayer on 27th of January, 2013. They slapped him, punched and choked him and made him scream hard, a kind of church practice to force the evil leave the body, they tried to remove homosexual demons out of him.

The Covington lawyer had a different story to tell, he said that Fenner came to the church and made his usual prayer, while he hugged and left the church after 15-20 minutes. However, opposite to it, Media after the 2013 beating interviewed certain church individuals and they also admitted that Fenner was beaten.

Covington moving out with her attorney after the trial

Word of Faith Fellowship congregants; were reported to be regularly beaten, punched and choked, in order to force the evil out of their body. This was meant to purify these people.

The church also has some strict rules in place which strictly decides, whether the participants can marry or can have children. Failure to heed to the church rules often results in a beating and serious action. Members are supposed to not watch movies, not to go to cinemas or drink alcohol or watch TV. Two district attorneys and a veteran social worker were also reported to be involved in shaping and changing the church’s congregants statements given to media and investigation authorities. These statements were being moulded for the benefit of Word of Faith Fellowship, so the outside world couldn’t know about the cruel behaviour which congregants were enduring.

This particular sect ‘Word of Faith Fellowship’ started in 1979, grew to 750 members, in North California and a nearly 2000 additional members in Brazil and Ghana.